NMLP P-016949 · True-first precedence · minted 2026-07-04

The Obscene Bird of Night

José Donoso (trans. Hardie St. Martin & Leonard Mades) · Alfred A. Knopf, New York · 1973

The true first edition is the Spanish 'El obsceno pájaro de la noche' (Seix Barral, Barcelona, 1970). The 1973 Knopf is the first (abridged) English-language edition. The 2024 New Directions edition revises the St. Martin/Mades translation with Megan McDowell, restoring nearly twenty pages of previously untranslated text — a distinct first-thus for the complete text, not a reprint of the Knopf text.

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New Mexico Literacy Project — True-first precedence NMLP P-016949 for "The Obscene Bird of Night" by José Donoso (trans. Hardie St. Martin & Leonard Mades) (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/id/point/p-016949, CC BY 4.0, dataset DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21184548).